noon there ran a rumour
through the town that knocking had been heard in the submarine....

The mayor himself drew up an official proclamation, in which it was
pointed out that it was almost certain that all on board had perished at
the time of the collision, and that, even if any of them had survived
for a few hours, not one could be alive now.

And then, as one by one the days of waiting began to wear themselves
away, the world, apart from the town which numbered ten of her sons
among the doomed men, relaxed its painful interest in the fate of the
French submarine. Indeed, Falaise took on an almost winter stillness of
aspect, for the summer visitors naturally drifted away from a spot which
was still the heart of an awful tragedy.

But Jacques de Wissant did not relax in his duties or in his efforts on
behalf of the families of the men who still lay, eighteen fathoms deep,
encased in their steel tomb; and the townspeople were deeply moved by
their mayor's continued, if restrained, distress. He even put his
children, his pretty twin daughters, Jacqueline and Clairette, into deep
mourning; this touched the seafaring portion of the population very
much.

It also became known that M. de Wissant was suffering from domestic
distress of a very sad and intimate kind; his sister-in-law was
seriously ill in Italy from an infectious disease, and his wife, who
had gone away at a moment's notice to help to nurse her, had caught the
infection.

The Mayor of Falaise and Admiral de Saint Vilquier did not often have
occasion to meet during those days spent by each of them in entertaining
official personages and in composing answers to the messages and
inquiries which went on dropping in, both by day and by night, at the
town hall and at the Admiral's quarters. But there came an hour when
Admiral de Saint Vilquier at last sought to have a private word with the
Mayor of Falaise.

"I think I have arranged everything satisfactorily," he said briefly,
"and you can convey the fact to your friends. I do not suppose, as
matters are now, that there is much fear that the truth will ever come
out."

The old man did not look into Jacques de Wissant's face while he uttered
the comforting words. He had become aware of many things--including
Madeleine Baudoin's cruise in the _Neptune_ the day before the accident,
and of her own and Claire de Wissant's reported departure for Italy.

Alone, among the people who sometimes had friendly speech o